9.5 Communications Infrastructure

WHO? The United States.

WHAT? Internet Infrastructure.

WHEN? Is essential to sustaining the economy; without it, society would radically change.

WHERE? The potential loss of the Internet presents a new national security challenge.

WHY? Although not easy, shutting down the Internet would certainly be catastrophic.

Communications is the last lifeline infrastructure we will examine. Although it includes all forms electronic media, much of it is underpinned by the Internet. Today, the Internet carries an increasing percentage of voice and video traffic as well as data. If the Internet failed, it would have a cascading effect across many other infrastructures. It is interesting to consider whether the Internet can fail since it was originally designed to survive nuclear war. Developed in the 1960s, the Internet has evolved through four great epochs. The First Epoch saw the creation of the ARPANET to share expensive computer resources needed for government research, and also provide redundant communications in the event of nuclear war. The First Epoch lasted from 1969 to 1981, and was characterized by a small, closed community of government and academic researchers. The Second Epoch saw a fundamental redesign of the ARPANET using TCP/IP protocols. The Second Epoch lasted from 1982 to 1995, and saw a rapid proliferation among universities after ARPANET was turned over to the National Science Foundation and became NSFNET. The Third Epoch saw two innovations that caused the Internet to expand exponentially and become ubiquitous today: 1) opening to the public, and 2) introduction of HTML. The Third Epoch put the world at our fingertips as the Internet balooned from 16 million users in 1995, to more than 4 billion in 2018, that’s more than half the earth’s population on the Internet. Today we are witnessing the Fourth Epoch as machines replace humans as the primary users. The Fourth Epoch, starting around 2010, is characterized as the “Internet of Things”, or IOT. Although the Internet has transformed dramatically since its inception, at its heart it still remains a simple collection of links, routers, and protocols. Both wireless and wired communication links provide the basic medium for transmitting data between computers. Routers direct the data where it’s supposed to go. And protocols provide the addressing and oversight mechanisms to reliably transmit data over an inherently unreliable media. Perhaps the key to the Internet is its basic simplicity, and the fact nobody owns it. Although nobody owns the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names, ICANN, a global non-profit agency operating out of Los Angeles, is responsible for Internet Governance. Through global collaboration, ICANN establishes technical standards that make the Internet work. ICANN also issues Internet Protocol addresses and manages a suite of 13 “root” Domain Name Servers that are fundamental to Internet operations. Using the ICANN standards and protocols, the Internet has been built by public and private agencies working towards collective interests to join their separate networks. Although nobody owns the Internet, the vast majority of links and routers are owned by a small number of very large, Tier 1 corporate Internet Service Providers. All the Tier 1 ISPs are connected to each other. They also allow, through negotiated agreements, for smaller, Tier 2 and Tier 3 ISPs to connect to them, thereby gaining global access. ISPs connect through specialized hubs called Internet Exchange Points. There are 350 IXPs globally. The Internet is comprised of billions of computers, millions of routers, and thousands of links. The sheer size and distribution of the Internet would seem to make it invulnerable to attack. But that’s not exactly the case. The billions of components making up the Internet rely on only 350 IXPs and 13 “root” Domain Name Servers. Their small numbers make them High Value Targets. Although there is no record of a concerted attack against the 350 IXPs, experts believe a massive Distributed Denial of Service Attack could succeed in disabling a significant portion of the Internet. In December 2015, such an attack WAS launched against the 13 “root” Domain Name Servers and succeeded in neutralizing three. If that attack had succeeded, the consequences could have been catastrophic.